John Wick: Chapter 3 Director Reveals How The Raid Stars Characters Evolved On Set

One of the most exciting things revealed ahead of the release of John Wick: Chapter 3 was that Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman had been cast. Yayan appeared in The Raid with both Yayan and Cecep having roles in The Raid 2; with both films being highly regarded as some of the best action films of all times. Their addition to the John Wick world had not only fans excited, but also the director Chad Stahelski and leading man Keanu Reeves.

Whilst speaking on The Empire Film Podcast, Stahelski revealed that The Raid stars had no dialogue in the script and that the moments that were added during the fight between themselves and John Wick were added because of the way the stars were acting during the fight. A mutual respect between the 3 actors off-screen made it’s way on screen, or Stahelski says, it “all came about just because of how fucking cool Cecep and Yayan are.”

Chad Stahelski
“Fucking huge fans. When Keanu found out, you never saw a bigger smile and you never saw a bigger worry. Because they are fast as fuck and they’re fantastic. It was one of the funnest ways to choreograph I’ve ever done, because they are masters. And they are fun. Literally none of the dialogue scene you saw with them was in the script at all. Every time they’d switch it on during the rehearsals and you’d think they’re the most bad ass guys ever. Then we’d yell cut and they’d start smiling, laughing, help Keanu up and go ‘Mr Reeves are you okay?’. They were in awe of Keanu as much as Keanu was in awe of them. And it was like the second day of shooting the glass house and they kept doing the same thing and Keanu was like ‘we’ve got to put that in the movie, just have them help me up’. And we said pause, everybody go to lunch early and me and Keanu sat there and just wrote 2 more scenes for them. That’s actually Keanu falling down in that shot too, he just fell back down ‘cos he’s fucking knackered. And they actually help him up and then Cecep’s like, ‘alright I’m not gonna’ fucking help you then’. And then they start talking and they go through the glass and Keanu’s like ‘I want to show these guys respect, I don’t want to kill these guys’. And that all came about just because of how fucking cool Cecep and Yayan are.”

Because of Keanu’s decision to not have John Wick kill the 2 characters, it does leave the door open for their return in the announced John Wick: Chapter 4, set for release in 2021.